Album Assessment: HOST IX

Host‘s IX is the shocking new album that’s about to worm its method to the highest of your playlist. Host is the mission of Paradise Misplaced legends Greg Waterproof coat and Nick Holmes. Named after Paradise Misplaced‘s magnificent but polarizing 1999 album, Host, the duo makes it instantly obvious that they’re exploring new inventive horizons.

If there are latest songs catchier than the ten morsels of bittersweet ear sweet discovered on IX, I am unable to recall listening to them. Repetition is deliberately used to craft an natural product that may successfully work its method beneath your pores and skin. The person tracks weave collectively fantastically to type a seamless complete. Host completely balances darkness and lightweight whereas creating quite a lot of moods.

Waterproof coat and Holmes hook you instantly with “Wretched Soul.” This reflective observe fills you with a way of drive because it sends you on a weighty existential quest: “And I seek through convictions… And I hear the familiar, lasting hurt. And I sense with a mission as I seek with a thirst for the last intermission…” IX could look like an intoxicating escapist triumph, but it surely’s really fairly sobering insofar because it leads you to a deeply meditative place.

If it is in any respect tough so that you can join with any of the bleaker-sounding compositions, save them for later within the night, and we assure you that they’ll come to life. “Inquisition,” for instance, is an particularly gloomy gem that offers you the wonderful feeling of being on a torture rack. Count on to slowly twist to this agonizing quantity — IX is a dance-friendly surprise from starting to finish.

Greg Waterproof coat confirmed in an interview with MetalSucks that IX is “a mixture of all kinds of stuff: goth, synth, cold wave, even stadium rock from the ’80s.” You may really feel the heart beat of the choice golf equipment that Waterproof coat and Holmes used to frequent in West Yorkshire. But, in case you can inform something from the titles of the primary two of Host‘s three profitable singles — “Tomorrow’s Sky” and “Hiding From Tomorrow” — it’s that IX is an album with a transparent relationship to the longer term.

In different phrases, IX combines your nostalgic cravings with all of the sorrow and dread that you’re experiencing as we speak as you anticipate tomorrow: “Until the light of day, the hours that darkness takes me, fear is my only escape…” I’ve had some time now to course of IX, and it positively appears to be probably the most refreshing new album round. It’s an especially acceptable piece of artwork for this dystopian period.

Host‘s distinctive voice is one in every of their best property. Even in case you take heed to IX with out understanding the main points of its creation, instinct will let you know that it is the work of two of the best musicians of our time. The clear presence of genius on IX is one thing that strikes you inside seconds. It simply has that unmistakable feeling of high quality and price. May we count on something lower than brilliance from the music of Greg Waterproof coat paired with the vocals and lyrics of Nick Holmes? After all, the chemistry between these two artists additionally contributes to creating IX a stellar effort.

I actually respect the quantity of coronary heart and dedication that has gone into this album. After listening to Mr. Waterproof coat‘s delightfully distinctive and equally “unsettling” brutal metallic band Strigoi, for instance, Host is truthfully the very last thing I’d have anticipated. However, IX does function the right complement to the extra excessive music that we headbangers are inclined to eat in harmful portions.

In closing, IX is able to inflicting a major impression partially as a result of it has the ability to talk to each sort of listener. Its content material is such that it’ll at all times resonate. Ridiculously clean, IX already seems like an iconic report. It is unimaginable to not love this album.